Survivors share tales of tornado

Monday

Apr 26, 2010 at 12:01 AMApr 26, 2010 at 12:05 PM

YAZOO CITY, Miss. (AP) — Morgan Hayden and Joe Moton stepped carefully through nails, broken glass and pink tufts of insulation, the remnants of their home leveled by a tornado as severe storms killed at least 10 people in rural Mississippi and two in Alabama.

The couple had planned to marry today, but with little left besides the clothes on their backs, they weren’t sure what to do.

“It’ll work out, though,” 27-year-old Hayden said yesterday, a day after the tornado ripped through as she and Moton, 31, huddled in a bathtub. The bathroom was the only room that wasn’t destroyed.

They were unhurt, and the stories of other survivors show how much higher the toll could have been as authorities tried to get a better handle on the destruction from violent weather that churned through a half-dozen Southern states over the weekend.

Dale Thrasher, 60, had been alone in Hillcrest Baptist Church when the tornado ripped away wood and metal until all that was left was rubble, Thrasher and the Communion table he had climbed under as he prayed for protection.

“The whole building caved in,” he said. “But me and that table were still there.”

Yesterday was sunny and breezy as Thrasher and about three dozen members of the Yazoo City church stood in a circle and sang “Till the Storm Passes By.” Thrasher reminded the group that the church has survived tough times before. They rebuilt after their building was destroyed by arson about 10 years ago.

Hundreds of homes also were damaged in the tornado, which carved a path of devastation from the Louisiana line to east-central Mississippi, and at least three dozen people were hurt. National Weather Service meteorologist Marc McAlister said the tornado had winds of 160 miles an hour and left a path of destruction at least 50 miles long.

“This tornado was enormous,” said Gov. Haley Barbour, who grew up in Yazoo County, a county of about 28,000 people known for blues, catfish and cotton. The twister wreaked “utter obliteration” among the picturesque hills rising from the flat Mississippi Delta, the governor said.

Mississippi’s Choctaw County had the most confirmed deaths: five, including a baby and two other children.

Sherry Fair rushed to her aunt’s home in the county. She said an hour and a half after the tornado passed, a woman lay dying in a ditch along a dirt road beside the body of her husband.

“She was laying there just crying,” Fair said. “She was broke up bad. It hurt me watching, but nobody could get to her. The ambulances couldn’t get through because of the trees.”

Authorities had not released a list of the dead. All inquiries were referred to Coroner Ricky Shivers, who nearly became a victim himself when the twister flipped his truck four times. He went back out in his hospital gown to help identify bodies and was back in the hospital late yesterday.

Tornadoes also were reported in Louisiana, Arkansas and Alabama. The storm system tracked northeast, downing trees in northwest Georgia early yesterday and later damaging two schools and several mobile homes in Darlington, S.C.

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